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HALF-VIRGIN by ALEXANDER GREGORY POLLACK B.A. Emory

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HALF-VIRGIN by ALEXANDER GREGORY POLLACK B.A. Emory HALF-VIRGIN by ALEXANDER GREGORY POLLACK B.A. Emory University, 2007 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, FL Spring Term 2011 © 2011 Alexander Gregory Pollack ii ABSTRACT POLLACK, ALEX. Half-Virgin. (Under the direction of Jocelyn Bartkevicius) Half-Virgin is a cross-genre collection of essays, short stories, and poems about the humor, pain, and occasional glory of journeying into adulthood but not quite getting there. The works in this collection seek to create a definition of a term, “half-virgin,” that I coined in the process of writing this thesis. Among the possibilities explored are: an individual who embarks upon sexual activity for the first time and does not achieve orgasm; an individual who has reached orgasm through consensual sexual activity, but has remained uncertain about what he or she is doing; and the curious sensation of being half-child, half-adult. Ultimately, I believe, a “half-virgin” possesses all of these traits. One of the goals of the collection is to scramble the prototypical coming-of-age story into bits and parts and halves. Among the approaches included are earnest memoir (the real and metaphorical costumes a young couple wears on Halloween), character-driven fiction (the life story of Marlow, a college track star who ends up the unwitting inspiration for Super Mario Brothers), and narrative experiments (a tongue-in-cheek creative writing syllabus and a bullet pointed resume of sexual conquests). By exploring the untidy fragments in love, lust, and human connection in these works, Half-Virgin aspires to find wholeness through the jagged adventures of growing up. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE ................................................................................................................................... 1 WHAT IS A HALF-VIRGIN?...................................................................................................... 14 PRAISE FOR HALF-VIRGIN ..................................................................................................... 15 YOUTH CULTURE ..................................................................................................................... 16 CHASE ME .................................................................................................................................. 17 KISS .............................................................................................................................................. 26 TENTH GRADE ........................................................................................................................... 29 SCISSORS .................................................................................................................................... 30 UNCLE BORIS TEACHES ME A LESSON .............................................................................. 36 DANCING WITH GIRLS ............................................................................................................ 38 COUNTY FAIR ............................................................................................................................ 50 COSTUME ................................................................................................................................... 51 RECYCLING ................................................................................................................................ 53 I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR REPLY ................................................................. 54 NICK BUTKOVICH AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL DANCE ..................................................... 59 RABBIT MAN.............................................................................................................................. 60 EYE EXAM .................................................................................................................................. 65 THE SYLLABUS ......................................................................................................................... 67 SUPER MARLOW ....................................................................................................................... 70 PRANK ......................................................................................................................................... 90 JUNIOR ...................................................................................................................................... 111 AND THEN ................................................................................................................................ 113 HALF-VIRGIN ........................................................................................................................... 114 A LETTER TO MEMOIR .......................................................................................................... 137 TGIF, 1993 .................................................................................................................................. 138 DEFENDING YOUR CASTLE ................................................................................................. 140 ATTENTION SHOPPERS ......................................................................................................... 149 LIBERTYLAND......................................................................................................................... 153 READING LIST ......................................................................................................................... 156 iv PROLOGUE The city shook, and Anna blushed. - From “Anna Pollack’s Fart Saves The City” by Alex Pollack “Anna Pollack’s Fart Saves the City” marked the beginning of my writing life. I was eight years old and excited by my creation and its dramatic conflict (my sister and I participating in a flatulent tete-a-tete at Ruby Tuesday) and inspiring conclusion (Anna’s final fart “saving the city” by extinguishing a bomb produced by my next-door neighbor Drew Hayward). The story was a gift I made for my sister’s fifteenth birthday; she laughed at it then, and eighteen years later, we’re laughing at its memory. The concept may be silly and juvenile, but hell, I‘m proud of how I used text to communicate affection and humor, and I’m proud that the communication was received and understood by those who read “Anna Pollack’s Fart Saves the City.” What I’ve discovered in the years since I wrote my first story is that while I’ve (mostly) moved beyond toilet humor, my motivations for writing haven’t changed all that much. The idea of truth might concern me more as a graduate student than as a second grader, but my chief goal as a writer remains the same: I strive to convey affection and humor for the people and experiences I love and/or fear. I think about a line from Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love: “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” I write to answer the unanswerable, even though I cannot do so. If I could, why would I need to keep writing? Mr. Topsy-Turvy was a funny sort of fellow. Everything about him was either upside-down, or inside-out, or back to front- topsy turvy in fact. 1 It was all very extraordinary! - From Mr. Topsy-Turvy by Roger Hargreaves At around the same time I wrote my first story, my mother would buy me a Mr. Men book each week. I was attracted to the colorful covers of the series, which featured zany characters like orange Mr. Wrong with a flower pot on his head, blue Mr. Bump wrapped in mummy bandages, and red Mr. Noisy with a mouth so wide it looked as if he could swallow a New York pizza slice in one gulp. While my mother would read to me more mature books before my bedtime (The Encyclopedia Brown series especially, during which I would strain my eyes in a Sisyphean task to solve mysteries that my mother had already, frustratingly, cracked), my relationship with the Mr. Men books was different because I’d begun to read on my own. My mom remained the ultimate facilitator in buying me the books I wanted, but I was nonetheless becoming independent in the sense of turning my own pages and engaging in the sweet intimacy between reader and text. Years later, I try not to take that intimacy for granted. I value the words of novelist/professor Joseph Skibell, who was my writing mentor at Emory University. In his essay “Our Love Affair with Books,” he wrote, “When your friends are too busy, a book will always go out with you for a cup of coffee. It will walk with you, down the street or to the corner, snuggling against your arm. And it will sit with you, wherever you go, the entire time you're there.” A book, as I began to learn with Mr. Noisy and Mr. Bump, was just like a good buddy in that it could comfort its companion. I knew generally what to expect from the Mr. Men series, but I was still compelled to cozy up, witness the hijinks, and learn a lesson or two. As Hargreaves himself wrote, “It was all very extraordinary!” 2 Take that, Shredder! Get out of the Technodrome! - Me to my Ninja Turtle action figures I didn’t read in the playroom. I didn’t write in the playroom either, unless you count the black-sharpied “TOY STORE, TURN RIGHT” I had scrawled on the walls as writing. Behind my parents’ bedroom, I played in the playroom, a low-ceilinged fortress strewn with action figures
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